Josep M. Llovet

Josep M. Llovet

Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer

Life & Medical Sciences

Josep M Llovet, MD, PhD is ICREA Research Prof at IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic and Full Prof of Medicine – Hepatic Oncology at the University of Barcelona. Full Professor of Medicine and Director of the Liver Cancer Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (New York). He has published 335 manuscripts in Liver Cancer (citations:98253; h-index:127; IF:8.128). Top 1% most cited researcher globally by Clarivate Analytics (2014-22). Major achievement: a) Defining molecular and immune classes of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), particularly NASH-HCC, and cholangiocarcinoma (CCA), b) discovery of drivers as therapeutic targets  HCC and FGFR2 fusion (CCA) and c) Establishing Standard therapies for HCC, such as sorafenib, regorafenib and ramucirumab. He has been Senior Editor CCR, President of ILCA (2011-13), lectured > 680 international meetings and PI of competitive grants FP7 & Horizon-HEPTROMIC, HEP-CAR, Accelerator Award and NIH R01-award.

Research interests

Prof Josep M. Llovet research has been focused on clinical and translational studies in liver cancer for the last 27 years. He is leading international randomized trials on novel targeted therapies and developing a molecular and immune classification of the disease, understanding the genetic aberrations and signaling pathways involved and in the identification of new molecular targeted therapies. He has organized the HCC Genomic Consortium that includes international research centers: IDIBAPS-Hospital Clínic, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, INSERM, Univ. Tuebingen, Dana-Farber-MIT-Broad Institute and NCI. The main areas of interest are a) identify biomarkers predicting response and resistance to checkpoint inhibitors and combination therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) b) translate oncogenic drivers discoveries as targeted therapies in liver cancer, c) unraveling the molecular traits of NASH-HCC onset, progression and response to immunotherapies.

Selected publications

- Llovet JM, Castet F, Heikenwalder M et al. 2022 'Immunotherapies for hepatocellular carcinoma'. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. 19:151–172 

- Esteban-Fabró R, Willoughby CE, Piqué-Gili M, et al. 2022, 'Cabozantinib Enhances Anti-PD1 Activity and Elicits a Neutrophil-Based Immune Response in Hepatocellular Carcinoma', Clinical Cancer Research, 28(11), 2449-2460.

- Llovet JM, Pinyol R, Kelley RK, et al. 2022, 'Molecular pathogenesis and systemic therapies for hepatocellular carcinoma', Nature Cancer, 3(4):386 - 401.

- Torrens L, Puigvehí M, Torres-Martín M, et al. 2022, 'Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Mongolia Delineates Unique Molecular Traits and a Mutational Signature Associated with Environmental Agents', Clinical Cancer Research, 28(20),4509-4520.

- Leslie J, Mackey JBG, Jamieson T, et al. 2022. 'CXCR2 inhibition enables NASH-HCC immunotherapy', Gut, 71(10):2093-106    

- Tabrizian P, Holzner ML, Mehta N, et al. 2022, 'Ten-Year Outcomes of Liver Transplant and Downstaging for Hepatocellular Carcinoma', Jama Surgery, 157(9):779-788.